Read a full match report of the Scottish Premier League game between Dundee
United and Celtic at Tannadice Park on Sunday Nov 4 2012.

The unforeseen developments in this unprecedented Scottish season continue apace. Celtic are on top of the SPL again but not with the sort of result they wanted ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League meeting with Barcelona at Parkhead.

In what was, for much of the occasion, a dour game, the main action was confined to the final quarter of the contest but with Celtic 2-0 up with 10 minutes to play with goals from Minku and Tony Watt, a full reward for Neil Lennon’s players looked certain.

Dundee United, though, produced a finish of admirable tenacity, scoring twice inside the final four minutes through Gary Mackay-Steven and an own goal from Efe Ambrose - to retrieve an improbable share of the points. Lennon’s concerns increased with the loss of Thomas Rogne and Emilio Izaguirre, both with ankle injuries which render them unlikely to be considered on Wednesday.

“We should have seen it out but Dundee United a couple of breaks for their goals but, like they say, that’s football,” was Lennon’s dismayed summary. “I thought we were and our four in the middle were really superb. A couple of injuries disrupted the flow but when Miku came on and scored and Tony got his goal, we felt we only had what we deserved at that stage of the game”.

Peter Houston, though, praised his team’s overall performance when he said: “We had to withstand pressure in the first half but they weren’t hurting us and Rado didn’t have to make a lot of saves. The players showed the character that I know they’ve got and results like this can kick start your season - that’s what I want this one to do.”

Barca’s visit might, in other circumstances, have dominated Celtic’s thoughts but domestic considerations - Hibernian had leapfrogged them in the SPL on Saturday - insisted on their full attention, especially since the Hoops’ previous league outing had resulted in Kilmarnock’s first win at Parkhead for 57 years. Neil Lennon made three changes to the side that swept past St Johnstone in the Scottish Communities League Cup last Tuesday, with Rogne, Adam Matthews, and Charlie Mulgrew coming in for Mikael Lustig, Efe Ambrose and Gary Hooper.

Rogne’s participation lasted all of 19 minutes before he limped off, having rolled an ankle while landing awkwardly in a headed challenge, to be replaced by Ambrose. The Celtic back line was hardly disrupted, for the simple reason that United rarely troubled them.

Instead, the home team’s energies were occupied by keeping Celtic at bay in midfield and holding them off inside the box. However, the absence of the usual Celtic attacking partnership of Hooper and Georgios Samaras blunted the champions’ efforts and neither of their best attempts of the first half came from the front two of Kris Commons and Tony Watt.

Before he departed the scene Rogne had a clear sight of goal from a Celtic corner kick, taken short by Commons to Scott Brown, whose cross was attacked by the Norwegian. Rogne got power on the header and, had it been on target, it would likely have put Celtic ahead, but he pushed it narrowly wide of the mark. They had to wait until five minutes from the break to carve another opening of such promise, this time when Brown broke from midfield to meet a cross from Mulgrew with a header which bounced on the wrong side of Radoslaw Cierzniak’s right-hand post.

As was to be expected, Celtic went upfield straight from the restart when Izaguirre exchanged passes with Watt and finished with a drive into the side net, but the Honduran defender tumbled awkwardly as he struck his shot and became the second casualty of the afternoon, with Miku taking his place.

This was followed by United’s first sustained pressure of the game, with Willow Flood stinging Fraser Forster’s palms with a shot that rebounded to Johnny Russell, who slashed his attempt over the top when he had only to pick his spot to net the opener.

The disappointment for United was that these openings were the product of hard work by their midfield quartet against the generally dominant Celtic four, all the more so since they paid for their profligacy when they fell behind to Miku with 21 minutes remaining when the Venezuelan gathered Watt’s pass, sidestepped one opponent and drove low beyond Cierzniak to net his first goal for the club. The United goalkeeper had nobody to blame but himself when he played an attempted clearance straight to Watt in the 80th minute and paid the price when the teenager promptly put the ball behind him.

It would not have been a surprise had United crumpled but they stuck to their task in adversity and in the final minute of normal time they gave themselves what most in the crowd must have thought was no more than a glimmer of hope when Mackay-Steven snapped on to the rebound from a Rudi Skacel shot to beat Forster.

When Russell then screwed a drive across the goalmouth and beyond the far post it seemed safe to assume United’s late rally was spent. The unfortunate Ambrose confirmed otherwise, however, when he rose to meet a driven cross from Douglas but got his angle just sufficiently wrong for the ball to skim off his skull and behind the stunned Forster.

“We’re back on top of the league and now we can turn our attention to Barcelona,” said Lennon. “Emilio and Thomas are both doubtful, as you would expect, but we hope to have better news from Gary Hooper, Georgios Samaras and James Forrest in time for Wednesday.”